Bringing science to life with IntoUniversity

By Chris Staddon 

Chris Staddon is a Senior Experimental Officer and Outreach Officer at the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham. Here he speaks about his experience leading activities with young people from our IntoUniversity Nottingham East centre.

I was first introduced to the Primary FOCUS Weeks in September 2012 by our Widening Participation Primary Liaison Coordinator who asked me if I could do something on ‘electricity’ for the new IntoUniversity Nottingham East centre. Having grown up on a council estate in London and being the only member of my family to go to university, I was always very keen on outreach work, especially that of a practical, scientific nature. I was also extremely excited to engage with the children as I thought it would be a great opportunity to engage them in learning about science whilst having fun.   

During the session, the young people had the opportunity to conduct a hands-on activity involving the building of parallel and series circuits with 3 bulbs and a battery to find out which one gave the brightest light. I found the experience very rewarding as primary school children are still naturally inquisitive and it is an ideal age to capture their imagination and excite them about the wonders of science.

Rather than trying to respond to many requests from different schools, I felt that by targeting our support toward IntoUniversity workshops and resources, we would have the greatest impact on the aspirations of Nottingham’s young people. So when I was approached again this year as to whether I would run an activity on electricity and renewable energy generation, I was very quick to respond with a resounding ‘yes’.

The format for the Tuesday morning workshops was similar to before, except this time the hands-on activity was to build a wind generator and investigate its operation. It was the first time we had run the activity so naturally there were a few teething problems and not all the children managed to achieve a perfectly working windmill. However, the young people were very engaged and, even when something didn’t work first time, they were inventive and tenacious about trying again and again. I think this also made the task a little more life-like and highlighted the initiative needed when things don’t turn out as planned.

Later in the year I hosted an additional follow-up activity with the same pupils at my place of work. I pointed out a blackboard written on by Albert Einstein during a university visit in 1930, and we had some more demonstrations and competitive teamwork activities involving electricity. Each child was also given the opportunity to be 'charged up' with a Van der Graaf generator which produced a spectacular display of different hair configurations. Certainly great fun was had by all!